twenty-one

I’ve never been in a therapist’s office before and I don’t know what to do. “Where should we sit?” I ask.

“Wherever you’re comfortable.” Dr. Parker is a petite blonde with horn-rimmed glasses. She smiled as she answered my question, but nothing can undo the tight knot of nervousness under my breastbone.

Gwen and I sit together on the love seat, each of us scooted close to the armrests, a lavender throw pillow between us. The therapist sits in a chair, a yellow pad on her lap. “It’s nice to meet both of you, so please tell me what brings you here. What are your concerns?”

Gwen shrugs, so I speak first. “Gwen had a bad incident with drinking. I’m scared. Something’s going on. What should I call it … some sort of issue? Some sort of hurt? We need help.”

Dr. Parker looks at Gwen. “And what do you think?”

“I think I did something stupid. That’s all. Nothing big that should bring me here.” Gwen twists at the fringe on the throw pillow, glances around the office.

“You don’t agree with your mom that maybe the drinking episode came from an ‘issue,’ as she called it.”

“Whatever.”

That’s my daughter.

“So.” Dr. Parker looks at me. “What do you believe is the hurt that spurred this?”

“My sister and my husband—her dad—were both injured in a car wreck. My sister, Willa, and Gwen are very close and Willa lives in a cottage on our property. This has been really hard for us. Gwen’s boyfriend broke up with her, and her dad and I aren’t getting along the best we ever have. And I think”—I take Gwen’s hand and speak to her—“you are hurting more than I can help. I didn’t bring you here because I think something is wrong with you; I brought you here because I want to help.”

“Dad is gonna be so pissed,” Gwen says in a hard voice.

“And why is that?” Dr. Parker asks.

“I heard him tell mom not to take me to a therapist.”

“Well, here we are,” I say. “So let’s see if we can talk about things.”

“Like … Aunt Willa told me that she’s going to move out.”

A sinking feeling comes over me; a helpless jolt of electric knowledge. “What?” I ask.

“You have to talk her out of it, Mom.”

“We’re here to talk about you, about us.” I lean forward to place my hand on Gwen’s knee, but she pulls back.

“Eve,” Dr. Parker says. “Why don’t you let Gwen and me talk for a while and I’ll come get you in a few minutes.”

“Yes.”

The waiting room is bland enough to be forgettable. Black-and-white photos of flowers and water and bridges and stones hang on a cream-colored wall. The furniture is taupe—maybe winter wheat, or just plain old beige. Unread magazines are scattered across a chrome coffee table and I shudder once again with the thought that maybe this is a terrible idea. But I don’t have another.

I flip through a year-old Simple Living magazine and don’t see a photo or read a word. I wait. Gwen comes out, and her eyes are puffy. “Are you okay?” I ask.

“I’m fine.” Her voice is soft, a whisper almost.

Dr. Parker hands me a slip of paper. “Gwen and I have made an appointment for Friday.”

“Do you need to talk to me?” I ask.

Dr. Parker smiles, a practiced effort, I’m sure. “Let’s let this be Gwen’s session for now, and we can talk next week?”

The drive home is heavy, like humidity. “How did it go?” I finally ask.

“Fine, Mom.”

“I’m glad you’re going back.”

Gwen twists away from me to look out the car window, dragging her finger along its edge. “Yeah, I think maybe it’s good.” She pauses before taking in a long breath. “Mom?”

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry this is so much trouble. I’m sorry I’m such a mess. I’m just sorry.”

“No.” I choke on the word. “Do not be sorry.”

“Okay.”

“I love you.”

“I know.”

*   *   *

Tuesday night and the Bohemian is crowded. People are three deep at the bar. The summer heat presses against the windows and only the most scantily clad girls are on the deck overlooking the river, trying to catch a breeze that doesn’t exist. Beers turn warm in the glass mugs.

Cooper talked me into meeting with a group of old friends: the Williamses, the Clayburns, and the Marshalls. “Let’s get back to normal,” he said. Whatever that is. We’re seated at a round table in a corner booth, private. I scoot to the inside to settle into the seat, glad to be out with friends. A glass of Malbec sits in front of me and conversation spills from every corner of the restaurant.

Friendships are born in different moments for different reasons, and these four families—the eight of us—had met when all our kids were in preschool. The women, Clara, Starla, and Baylor, have been friends of mine since Gwen was born. I haven’t seen them in months, and it’s nice to feel settled, part of a life Cooper and I have been building for years now—all these years of making something real. I reach over and take his hand; he smiles at me and then kisses me.

“Get a room,” Starla says, laughing.

Baylor joins in, raising her glass in a toast. “Here’s to long-lasting friendships and marriages.”

“Seriously,” Clara says. “I think the eight of us are the only ones who have made it from that original preschool class.” She settles back. “Remember those days? I have never been so tired in all my life.”

“That Barney cake we made for Gwen’s birthday? Do you remember that?” I ask. “It took us three tries and it tasted like burned flour. I had purple fingers for days from that disgusting frosting.”

“God, yes.” Baylor groans. “And the playgrounds with the mean moms. And getting up at five A.M. to wait in line for the just-right preschool-class registration. The hours spent singing Disney movie songs in the car.”

“Sometimes,” Starla says, “I wake up singing the Arthur theme song. But I don’t know how I would have made it without this group. Why has it been so long since we’ve gotten together?”

“Busy lives,” Cooper replies.

The men, Brad, Taylor, and Cliff, nod. “Damn,” Brad says, “I’ve been in town two days this month.”

“Well, I’m not that busy.” Carla pokes at her husband. “Except for keeping everything afloat while he gallivants around the country.”

“Yeah, if you can call begging for business gallivanting,” Brad says.

I laugh. “That was one of my mom’s favorite words,” I say. “‘Don’t gallivant.’ What does it even mean?”

The conversations overlap; we order our meals and then, as we’re being served, a silence falls over the clink of dueling forks and knives. Cooper is wearing a bandage tonight—although it’s no longer needed—to cover his puckered scar.

Lifting her wineglass, Starla leans forward. She teaches yoga downtown and has four thriving kids, the kind you brag about. It would be easy to hate her, but she’s as funny as the best stand-up comic. This time, though, she’s serious. “Eve, I heard about Gwen’s overdose. God, I am so sorry. Our kids, they just kill us, don’t they?”

“Overdose?” My fork flips in my hand, clattering to the floor.

Starla looks to her husband, Taylor. “That’s what you said.”

“That’s what Mary Jo told me.” He shrugs and takes a long swig of his wine.

“She didn’t OD,” I say. “She drank too much and … I had to go pick her up. It was awful and scary.” I smile at Starla because I know she meant no harm.

Baylor, who sits next to me, takes my hand. “We had to send Rusty to a rehab place this summer. After his knee surgery, he couldn’t get off the Oxycontin, and it’s been terrible.”

“I swear,” Carla says, “sometimes preschool feels like the golden days.”

Something niggles at me, something in the jumbled conversation, in the tense feeling of Cooper next to me, like a muscle cramp.

That’s what Mary Jo told me.

“Taylor.” I lean forward with a false calm. “Who’s Mary Jo?”

“Our accountant. She does work for all of us.” He waves his hand around the table.

Cooper doesn’t speak, taking a too-big bite of steak.

“Damn gossip,” Starla says.

The topic of conversation switches as Starla tells us about the new yoga studio she’s renovating. Then Baylor talks about her art endeavors and going back to school. Cliff says he’s learning to kiteboard.

Cooper attempts to take my hand; I refuse. “It’s been a long few weeks.” He touches his bandage for emphasis. “I have my first surgery on the twelfth.”

“It’s so awful,” Cliff says. “And how’s your sister?” Cliff asks me.

“Better every day. Thanks for asking.”

“Wait,” Starla says, glancing around. “Isn’t this where y’all were that night?

“I wasn’t here,” I say. “It was just Cooper and Willa.”

“I never did hear exactly what happened.” Brad lifts his wineglass, as if waiting for someone to tell a really good story. “Thank God you weren’t hurt worse, my friend.”

I set my fork on the table and settle my gaze on Cooper. “I don’t think anyone knows exactly what happened.”

Cooper flinches. “I do.” He looks around the table and smiles that charming smile. “It’s a simple and stupid story. I wish I’d just left her alone and just let her embarrass herself. But hindsight is twenty-twenty.”

“No good deed goes unpunished,” Starla says.

“Dingle,” I say.

“Huh?” she looks at me.

I smile at her and wave my hand in the air. “Nothing.”

A few minutes later, I excuse myself to go to the ladies’ room. In the tiny bathroom, I stare into the mirror, taking stock of my face, my feelings. I apply lipstick and a quick swipe of mascara. If only my feelings could be so easily glossed over. When I’m through, I make a beeline to the bar, where gorgeous women bartenders juggle orders, demands, and beers while wearing black-laced bustierres. I sidle through the crowd and holler, “Is Benson here?”

“Over there.” A girl with long auburn curls points to the far end of the bar.

I walk toward him. He’s talking to a crowd of people and soothing what seemed to be an argument about who first had claim to a bar stool. “Hi, Benson.”

“Well, hello, Eve.” He hugs me. “How are you?”

“Good.”

“I saw Willa yesterday.” He smiles with such genuine regard. “She’s doing so great. I can’t wait until she comes back to sing.”

“Me, neither. I’ll be in the front chair.”

He laughs. “Damn, if you’d only been here that night instead.” He isn’t accusing; he’s smiling with his eyes, with his voice.

“You were here, right?”

He nods.

“What happened?” I ask.

“I wish I knew. I was in the back, working with the sound system. I knew she was up next, but when I came out, she was gone. Her guitar was here, but she wasn’t.”

“Do you remember her acting weird or drunk or anything at all off?”

“No. Not even a little.” He exhales. “I mean, I don’t know what happened the half hour I was back working on the sound system, but not before.”

“Thanks.”

I feel it; I feel Cooper staring at me. I glance back to Benson. “Do you remember Cooper there?”

He shakes his head. “I don’t usually notice the dinner crowd. I’m too busy taking care of the crazies at the bar.”

I hug him and return to the table. “It’s nice to see Benson,” I say as Carla and Cooper stand to let me back into the booth.

The check has arrived at the table and the men are playing credit card roulette, where they fold the credit cards in a fan and made the waitress pick one with her eyes closed. Cooper loses, or wins—depending how you looked at it.

We gather our things and wait for the bill to be signed, but when the waitress returns, her eyes drawn together above her reading glasses, she hands the credit card to Cooper. “I’m sorry, sir. There seems to be a problem. It was declined.”

Cooper laughs as if she’s playing a practical joke. “That’s not possible,” he says.

“Well, maybe you can call. Sometimes a halt is put on it because they think there is a funny charge.…”

“Geeze.” Cooper smiles at her and then at us. “Gwen probably bought something at an iffy store.…” He reaches into his wallet and then looks at me. “Honey, this is all I brought.”

I reach into my purse with a smile, but my mouth is arid, parched, as I realize I haven’t brought a wallet or cash; I always depend on Cooper to cover it all: the dinners, the bills, our life.

“Damn, Cooper.” Brad places his hand on the table. “I’ve got this.” He hands the card to the waitress. “But you owe me, Coop. For this dinner, I want a free half-page advertisement.”

Cooper laughs, but I know the sound is devoid of anything but unease. He places his card back into his wallet. “Consider it payback for last week, when you kicked my ass on the golf course.”

On the drive home, darkness presses onto and into the car. I reach to turn on the radio, but Cooper stops me. “I think it’s best if we talk, Eve. I can’t live with us like this.”

“Like this?” I repeat. My hands are folded in my lap, belying the fast beating heart and the anxiety grip on my throat.

“You doubting me.”

“I don’t know what to do, Cooper. I don’t.”

“You might not know what to do, but what do you believe? Whom do you believe?”

“I don’t believe either of you.”

“What the hell?” He pulls the car over and parks on a side street, turns to face me.

I continue, strong. “I don’t think your story is wholly true. I don’t think Willa’s memories are wholly true. I think there’s something in the middle—a story in between.”

“And what is that?”

“The truth.”

“Eve, I’ll tell you the truth. If you pursue this, if you go looking for something that’s not there, we will lose everything. You’ll lose everything.”

“What does that mean?”

“Think logically. Just try to do that for me. Okay?”

“What do you mean, Cooper?” My throat tightens and anger fills my chest with hot wind.

“Sometimes you live in la-la land, Eve. You don’t even have a college degree. Do you think that the house and your studio and your company just happened? The house we live in, the studio, Willa’s cottage—they’re all here because of my family’s work and reputation through the years. We live on the bedrock of all that came before us: family.”

“So,” I say, bitterness finding its way into my words, “you’re telling me that everything we have is built on a reputation that you can’t allow to be ruined. And if your image is ruined, so are we.”

“Something like that.”

“That’s the logic you want me to see?”

“Yes. And I don’t understand why you’re being like this. What is wrong with you?”

“What is wrong with me?” I lean my head back on the seat rest, tears springing up quickly. “I keep asking myself that very question.”

“Well, you’d better figure it out before you ruin us. Our family. Your business. Everything.”

It sounds like a threat.

“Let it be, Eve. It’s over.”

“Yes,” I say. “But to let it go, I have to ask you two questions. And I’ll ask them only once and then I won’t bring it up again.”

“I’ll tell you the truth. What do you want to know?”

“Were you at the restaurant with that Mary Jo?”

“No. I already told you.”

“Did you hit a man, a homeless man?” It’s a dreadful relief to finally ask this question.

“No. And I already told you that. We hit a cursed tree, Eve.”

“Okay, Cooper. You hit a tree. I believe you.” Because the alternative is too awful to bear.

“Can we go home now?”

“Yes. Home.” He takes my hand and leans over, kissing me deeply, satisfied. He’s the only one.